Process Competencies

HAND LAYUP & VACUUM BAGGING ON HARD TOOLING, COLLAPSIBLE & SOLUBLE MANDRELS, AUTOCLAVE & OVEN CURE, CNC PLY & CORE KITTING, CNC MACHINING, RUBBER & VITON INTENSIFIER CAULS.

A COMPREHENSIVE CAPABILITY - AN INTEGRAL PART OF YOUR TEAM

At Sanders Composites we like to say ‘it’s not just what we do, “it’s the way that we do it!”. In practice, this means working as an extension of your team and delivering a seamless, vertically integrated service that clients value as much as the quality of our products.

Our work with one of our largest customers in the aerospace defense market is a perfect demonstration of our ability to respond, innovate, streamline and deliver…

Initially commissioned to process composite interior panel parts for this customer, our involvement grew to encompass: laying up, curing, trimming, painting , assembling with hardware and decals, and supplying kitted parts. The size of these parts is, on average, 36” x 48”.

Over time, Sanders Composites involvement grew to include sourcing and maintaining an extensive inventory of 1,421 unique SKU’s for detail items including Prepreg, Foam and Honeycomb Core, Nuts, Bolts, Washers, Blind Nuts, Bushings, Titanium Rods, Aluminum Rods, Hinges, Hooks, Clips, Brackets, Nylon Straps/Webbing, Electrical Fixtures, Light Fixtures, Junction Boxes, Windows, Decals, Rubber Seals & Gaskets, Primer, Paint.. Some inventory to say the least!

Always committed to delivering the best value, our sourcing activity involved procurement from 60+ sub-tier suppliers, with a $1.3m annual raw material spend.

Annually, 23,500 hours of touch labor are used to ship 780 assemblies, not counting 100+ spares assemblies.

With an ongoing project of this scope, some serious organization was required to avoid confusion, damage, storage problems, and waste.

Sanders collaborated with the customer to develop a strategy for delivery, a departure from the traditional way of shipping a container of boxed parts. We decided to split each of the twelve annual deliveries into thirteen kits per shipset with each kit given a rolling cart for storage, which allowing for easy transportation and inspection at Sanders Composites.

Additional benefits of this strategy were the easy and safe movement onto the 3 - 53’ semi-box trailers per delivery, plus easy transportation and storage at the customer’s facility.

As a final bonus, the unpackaging, install time, and packaging waste removal of these panels onto the aircraft reduced from hundreds of hours to a task that could be accomplished in less than a day. A great result all round!

Sanders Composites looks forward to collaborating with you to make your process more streamlined and easier to maintain.